


If It's What You Want

by oncethrown



Series: Spaces Between [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 07:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9808475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oncethrown/pseuds/oncethrown
Summary: 2x7 Coda/ Fix It FicThey both know that there's something special between them. They both know that being vulnerable can open you up to amazing things some times.Sex, though.It never goes the way you imagined.Magnus knows that. Alec doesn't.





	

Magnus wonders if Alec knows that he’s done this before. 

 

Reluctantly accepted this kind of overbearing kiss. Walked backward toward his bed, wondering how he was going to gently dampen misdirected enthusiasm. Made the walls he’d finally built around his heart into a fence again— permeable enough let affection and care and optimism in and out… but still stay a form of defense. 

 

Because the thing that Magnus doesn’t think Alec understands yet, is that it’s not about numbers. Alec never asked him what the definition of relationship was when Magnus quoted him 17,000. Relationship is such an insubstantial concept. Magnus could have meant anyone he’d ever slept with. Anyone he romanced. 

 

Anyone he’d loved. 

 

Anyone who had loved him back. 

 

Shadowhunters were irritatingly prudish. They lived short, brutal, colorless lives, adhering to a Law with neither feeling nor nuance. But they tended to bond for life. They found someone early and they held them tightly for as much time as the Angel granted them. 

 

Magnus, however, had lived a very long life full of as many excesses as he could find. 

 

He couldn’t help himself. He’d been testing Alec. 17,000 was everyone. All of them. Any relationship, by any measure. 

 

If a vampire had asked him for a number, he would have given them a ball park of 10,000. Vampires were visceral and had a… fluid thing. To a vampire, a number was about sex. A seelie or a werewolf would have been asking about connection. People that, for a century, or a decade or an afternoon, had overwhelmed him, linked themselves with his mind or his spirit in some way.  Maybe 8,000. 

 

But warlocks…

 

There is a parable about a sparrow flying through a mead hall during a storm, written back when they still had mead halls, and way before they had window screens. The sparrow flies through one window, and quickly back out the window on the other side. For a moment, he is warm, and safe, and there is light. But the storm rages on outside, and he slips out of it, and then back in, with a nearly meaningless moment of safety and warmth in between. 

 

That’s what love, real love, is when you’re immortal and alive. A moment of light in an unknown eternity. What number would Magnus have given if a warlock had asked him?

 

He doesn’t know.

 

It’s… reassuring that Alec isn’t daunted by 17,000 other memories, but Magnus hasn’t known real innocence in centuries. He should have known that when Alec heard 17,000, he had imagined a little field of other people Magnus had been with, standing in neat little lines— soldier’s ranks— from the last person Magnus had been with, all the way back to the first, in regimented order.  Men, women, Seelies, vampires, warlocks, a djinn or two. Alec can make his peace with taking the 17,001st spot in the ranks. Shadowhunters rarely expect personal exception. 

 

Magnus is starting to wonder just how long it’s going to take Alec to figure out that the combinations and configurations of all those participants is a factor too. 

 

Several women at once. Several men at once. The not-so-occasional orgy, because…well. When in Rome (or France. Or Austria. One time Canada.) Wine drunk in the palace. Beer drunk anywhere from the local tavern to the nearest throne room. High out of his mind on whatever the hot-hallucinogenic-of-the-day had been in the forest or the desert or at most sacred near-by river. Mead drunk during a winter storm in one of those godforsaken halls. 

 

Has Alec thought of that? If Magnus doesn’t bring it up now, is Alec going to be upset?

 

Alec is unbuttoning his shirt. 

 

Sex isn’t the only variation in those seventeen thousand either. There were men he’d met in secret over the course of years, never really knowing anything about them but the way they touched, because it was too dangerous to know more. Women he might have married if someone with a better pedigree, a bigger fortune, or their very own duchy hadn’t made an official proposal instead. Painters who’d spent hours mixing pigment to capture the exact bronze of his skin, only to leave the canvas half finished because Magnus had gotten bored and taken them in their studio. Dressmakers seduced in his country home while the lady of the house tried on different hats and watched. People he’d mourned for decades. People he still mourned now, on dark nights or empty mornings. 

 

One night stands, lovers, soul mates, and might-have-beens.

 

But none of that is experience. How many people in how many positions, in how many combinations isn’t experience. 

 

Experience is what you learn from doing all those things. 

 

And this. Magnus has done this before. Jumped in too soon. Not listened to his intuition. Let sex take over a relationship that could have been more. 

 

Alec doesn’t understand that. 

 

Magnus feels the edge of his bed bump against the back of his knees. This is usually the part where he gets thrown back on the mattress. Especially in the last century. People get more of their ideas from movies than they think they do.

 

But Alec stops. His kisses get slower, and more deliberate. He pulls open the last two buttons of Magnus’s shirt, and then slides his palms over Magnus’s shoulders and up his neck, holding him, gently, in the kiss. 

 

Magnus sets his own hands to Alec’s chest and Alec pulls back, smiling down at him. 

 

He’s beautiful. He’s so much more than Magnus had imagined he would be. Kind and brave and caring. It’s too early to be love, but Magnus knows it could be. 

 

It’s so easy to imagine that it could be. 

 

Alec looks down Magnus’s body, his eyes soft and warm, his mouth hanging open with something uncomfortably like awe. 

 

“How… umm. How do you want to do this?”

 

“Slowly,” replies Magnus. 

 

Alec grows even stiller. He pulls his bottom lip into his mouth for a moment.  “Are you still trying to protect me, or do you not want to do this? Because I meant it when I asked you not to treat me differently just because I haven’t ever—“

 

“I’m not trying to protect you. I… I’m not sure what I want.”

 

Alec nods, looking somber. “Okay.”

 

“I don’t want to dive into this just because Jace isn’t here.”

 

“That’s not why—“ Alec starts, but stops himself. “That’s fair.” He squeezes Magnus’s shoulder. His forehead creases. “I’m sorry.” 

 

“Thank you. And it’s not you. I promise it’s not you,” Magnus says. 

 

Alec nods. For a moment, he looks disappointed, but then he smiles. “We could pick up where we left off on the balcony?”

 

He’s fighting for a neutral expression, but it’s edged with fear. Magnus grips Alec’s waist, holding him close, trying to soothe his gentle rejection into the smallest rejection it can be. 

 

“I’ll go light the candles and pour the wine.”

 

* * *

 

 

Alec settles into the chaize lounge out on the balcony and takes the glass of wine Magnus offers him. 

 

Magnus sits down too, leaving a little space between them. 

 

Alec takes too deep a sip from his glass. He hadn’t been trying to push. He’d been trying to reassure Magnus. By the Angel, of all the things in this world to be worried about right now, the idea that Alec would leave Magnus _because they’d had sex_ was crazy. 

 

He wants… he wants the kind of link that Magnus has apparently not been afraid to forge with seventeen thousand other people. He wants something _official_. He wants to be vulnerable with Magnus because he hasn’t been vulnerable with anyone since… he can’t even remember. Maybe he never has. 

 

But since things started with Magnus?

 

He’d let people see him cry about Jace. He stood up to Aldertree. He’d gone out on dates. With a man. In public. 

 

For fuck’s sake he’d asked Izzy for sex advice. 

 

Magnus makes him… spin out of his comfort zone in a way he’d never been able to imagine before being with Magnus. Watching him smile, listening to him talk, kissing him, touching him, makes Alec feel like it doesn’t matter. Like it’s actually a good thing to let his emotions take over now and again. Magnus is like…a safe haven on a long journey. He’s the place where Alec can duck in for warmth and light on a dark trail. 

 

He feels safe here. He’d do _anything_ for Magnus here. 

 

He’s not sure how to deal with the fact that Magnus doesn’t seem to feel as safe as he does. 

 

He takes another gulp of the wine. 

 

“Can I ask you something?” Magnus asks, moving a little bit closer. 

 

“Yeah, of course.”

 

“Why tonight? Is it just that Jace isn’t around? Because… that’s another problem that magic can solve.”

 

Alec can’t keep himself from squirming a little before he opens his mouth and tells Magnus the truth. “It’s not… It wasn’t just tonight. I thought you might…” He takes a breath. He’s an adult. He should be able to talk about this if he wants to do it.  “I thought you were going to ask me. The last couple times we’ve gone out. And I talked to Isabelle today. About… like what to wait for. And she told me that if I wanted to, and I thought it would make us both happy… then I should just go for it,” He sets his hand to his forehead, a little disappointed with himself as he continues. “And I came right here. To go for it.”

 

Magnus moves closer, setting his hand over Alec’s knee. Alec feels the gentle squeeze of Magnus fingers through his jeans. “The little talisman you got me? I’ve been carrying it around. I can’t remember the last time anyone ever got me a gift.”

 

Alec’s not sure he even understands this at first. “What?”

 

“It’s been… decades. At least. Since anyone’s done such a small…thoughtful thing for me.”

 

Alec doesn’t know what to say to that. Words aren’t his strong suit. He wants to launch forward, kiss Magnus until Magnus can see him the way Alec sees him. 

 

But… now he’s not sure if he can. 

 

“That’s bullshit,” Alec says, more vehemently than he meant to. Magnus smiles, a little sadly. 

 

And then he looks up, and his eyes sparkle under their heavy shadow, like stars in the sky. 

 

Alec can’t stop himself from leaning in, but he does it slowly. He’s giving Magnus every chance to move, or stop him. 

 

Magnus doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

The longer they kiss on the balcony, the harder it is for Magnus to remember the reason he thought they should wait. 

 

It had something to do with the risks of jumping in too fast. Not scaring Alec away. 

 

And then Alec makes a sound, more of a gasp than anything else, soft enough that Magnus wouldn’t have heard it had they not been pressed so close together. 

 

Magnus presses forward, reaching past Alec and _encouraging_ him downward onto his back. Alec sets his hands to Magnus’s neck and free-falls backward, pulling Magnus down with him. On top of him. 

 

There’s no reason to stop himself from pressing down further, making Alec gasp again. There’s no reason not to slide his hands under Alec’s sweater. No reason to stop Alec when the Shadowhunter’s hands slide up under Magnus’s shirt, rucking it up to his shoulders before Magnus finally pulls away to fight his way out of the rest of the fabric. 

 

And when Alec surges upward, kissing his way up Magnus’s bare chest… there’s no reason not to move things to the bedroom. 

 

“This doesn’t mean we’re going to have sex,” Magnus whispers a playful warning as Alec backs him into the bedroom again, while Magnus undoes Alec’s belt. 

 

Alec just kisses  him, and gets to work on Magnus’s own belt, pulling out out and dropping it in the living room. He backs Magnus against the hallway wall, kissing up from the base of his neck to his ear before whispering, “I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me.”

 

The sound that escapes Magnus at that low, wicked growl is not dignified. It’s not in control. It’s not wary. It’s not careful. 

 

He pushes Alec backward. Hard enough to actually move him, soft enough that Alec will know he hasn’t crossed a line. He grabs Alec by the forearms, turns them both around and marches Alec backward toward his bed. 

 

The second they hit the edge of it Alec drops. Before Magnus can say anything, Alec is undoing Magnus’s fly, pulling down his jeans. 

 

Magnus doesn’t do anything to stop him, other than press the edge of his hand to the waist band of his underwear, to make sure they don’t follow his pants down his legs. 

 

Alec’s eyes go wide. “What are those?” He starts to reach out, like he’s going to touch, then balls his hand up and drops it back to the mattress. 

 

“Um… bikini cut?” Magnus replies, a little dumbfounded at Alec’s clear preoccupation with his underwear. “Armani.”

 

Alec nods and shakes his head a little. His adams apple bobs in his throat like it’s just caught a huge fish before he blushes and looks away. Magnus sets his hand to Alec’s shoulder and pushes gently. Just like before, Alec topples like a domino. 

 

It’s a very promising habit. Magnus will have to find some fantasies to use it in. 

 

Alec’s underwear are plain, black, cotton-poly blend boxer briefs. Magnus knows what the next gift he buys Alec will be. 

 

They fall into more kissing, more touching as they move up to the head of the bed. 

 

Everything with Alec is a surprise. He loves so hard, and cares so much, and Magnus… Magnus has seen the way  he focuses that on people. Can see the ways Alec is starting to focus that same energy on him. 

 

Maybe… maybe tonight is as good a night as any. 

 

What’s the worst that could happen?

 

* * *

 

 

Alec wishes he could disappear the way Magnus can. Suddenly not be here. Suddenly not seem to be anywhere. Maybe he could turn to ash and blow away. Maybe he could turn into a frog. 

 

Maybe he could be absolutely anywhere, other than where he is now, naked, in Magnus bed, covered in his own come _fucking moments_ after Magnus had pulled Alec’s underwear off, apologizing profusely for ruining this before they even _did anything_.

 

“Alec, Alec,” Magnus repeats,finally pressing a kiss to Alec’s mouth so hard that Alec can’t keep up his litany of _I’m so sorry._ Alec feels the chuckle bubble out of Magnus before he hears it, and it makes everything worse. Maybe he could request a transfer to Wrangle Island and then just go out into the Russian tundra and freeze to death. 

 

“Alec. Alec?” Magnus repeats. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Magnus kisses him again. “There’s no reason to be. This happens. Don’t let it be a big deal.” 

 

“But—“ Alec starts. 

 

“Alec, if you trust me enough to have sex, you should trust me enough to have something go wrong during it.”

 

Alec opens his mouth to argue, but shuts it and lets his head drop back against the pillows. Magnus’s thumb moves against his collar bone. 

 

He’d wanted this so badly. For the last several hours in a very specific way, much longer than that in a more abstract way. And they’d been fooling around for such a long time. He really had set himself up for failure. 

 

_Still._

 

After the way Magnus and even Izzy, had looked at him when they’d figured out that he’d never had sex, never done anything, with anyone, _ever_ it was impossible not to feel humiliated.

 

“Trust me,” Magnus goes on. “Things go wrong. I once saw someone lose an arm, mid-coitus.”

 

“What?” Alec demands.

 

“He was in a mania and a statue fell on him. He kept going for a surprisingly long time afterward. Until the blood loss caught up to him.”

 

Alec stares up at Magnus’s face, looking for some hint that he’s teasing or making fun of Alec, but it’s not there. Alec tips his head up to kiss him. 

 

“Do you want me to do anything for you?” Alec asks. 

 

For a moment, Magnus looks like he’s considering it. “Let’s say, not yet. Let’s get dressed.  Get some Dim Sum.”

 

“You sure?” Alec asks. He feels like he should feel rejected, but it’s occurring to him now that maybe he should have just listened to Magnus to begin with. Rushing in has not worked out according to plan. 

 

Plus, he’s starving. 

 

He gets up, grabs his clothes, and heads to Magnus bathroom, checking carefully for signs of Jace before crossing the hall. He wipes himself down with a few kleenex from the box on the sink, not wanting to dirty any of Magnus’s towels. Then he gets dressed, and takes a second to smooth down his hair before going back to Magnus’s room, where there’s already a portal spinning against the windows. 

 

Magnus holds out his hand, and Alec takes it and follows him.

 

* * *

 

 

“I didn’t think…” Alec laughs, grabbing a little steamed bun from the center basket on the table. “I didn’t think you were just portaling us a few blocks away.”

 

Magnus shrugs and plucks a few bites for himself out of the the array of baskets in front of them. “Another night I’ll take you to my favorite dim sum place. This little hole in the wall in Fuzhou. But… you’re going to stick out, and I didn’t think you’d appreciate the staring tonight.”

 

He bites into a bun and watches Alec carefully. Shadowhunters are such strange creature. So arrogant sometimes, but with such fragile egos. 

 

Alec inhales three buns before sipping his water and leaning a little ways over the table. “Tell me about a complete disaster.”

 

“What?”

 

“You drop all these little… hints about Casanova and Michelangelo, and you make it sound like you’ve never been less than, you know. Effortless. With anyone. Tell me about a time everything _went to shit_.”

 

“You know that what just happened doesn’t mean that anything _went to shit_ , right?” Magnus asks, watching Alec’s face. 

 

The _young_ look on his face becomes more of a smirk than anything else and he shrugs with enticingly false innocence. “Nope. Not aware. I don’t have any frame of reference, remember? You’re going to have to give me an example.”

 

His smile is contagious. Magnus grabs another bun from the spread between them and leans back into his chair, raking through his memory for a story that will assuage Alec’s embarrassment. He picks at his dim sum, sifting through old stories. He does bring up past famous lovers too often around Alec. It’s a bad habit. He’s spent so little time around mortals for the last few years, he forgets that they think about things so differently. 

 

He rejects a few stories between him and Camille. Even after everything, the pain is too near. 

 

A story, an _old, old_ story comes to mind. It’s a bit of a risk to tell it to a soldier. Magnus slides his hand into his jacket pocket, brushing his fingers over the omamori. He can risk a little for Alec. 

 

So he does. He tells him the story of a general. Handsome, with a few enticing scars, in a war that Magnus was only on the sidelines of. During a time where the ink on maps was not particularly resistant to sweat. And new orders were slow to arrive. And the king was not an understanding man. 

 

“And so it turned out that it wasn’t a river, it was a.. Ahem. Stain,” Magnus concludes. “The morning afterward he ended up marching his entire army to a remote location about 25 miles away from the frontline. They camped there for months, but the place was essentially a paradise. I like to think I helped.” 

 

Alec laughs, eats a little more and shakes his head. 

 

The waiter comes by and asked if they needed anything else. Magnus orders a bottle of champagne. 

 

“What's the occasion?” Alec asks.

 

“Alexander, I’m surprised you think I need a justification to indulge.”

 

Alec watches him, looking so much like he had that first night he’d spent in Magnus’s apartment. Suspicious and optimistic.

 

“That story isn't good enough,” Alec finally announces.

 

“I beg your pardon?” Magnus demands, feigning offense. 

 

“You don’t get past this that easily,” Alec says with a smile. “It was really embarrassing, what just happened to me. I don’t think a funny anecdote where nothing actually happened to you is going to be enough.”

 

Magnus laughs. “Ah. Tit for tat. I see. Let me think of something else. To satisfy your vicious appetite.”

 

He’s not trying to be evasive but… the world was very, very different when he was twenty three. It’s hard for him to remember something equivalent to Alec’s minor, forgettable, _wholly expected_ , lapse in self control. 

 

“I’m sure I never told you about the time I got hung out a window, fully nude, just after the vespers bell rang?”

 

Alec shakes his head.

 

Magnus sighs theatrically. “You don't appreciate how much of history went by making it difficult to seduce women.”

 

Alec rolls his eyes, but he’s listening.

 

It's a pretty basic story. A girl, an overbearing father. A nunnery within riding distance. A poorly timed moan of pleasure. A stronger than expected bishop.

 

“There was a painting of the incident at some point, but hopefully it’s burned by now.”

 

“The nuns really threw apple cores at you?”

 

“I was hit in my uncovered groin by a book of prayers, Alec. I left Europe for decades afterward.”

 

Alec laughs and pours himself a third glass of champagne. “Okay, we’re mostly even.”

 

“Mostly?”

 

Alec's smile dims a little. “How old are you? Is that okay to ask?”

 

No, Magnus thinks immediately. It isn't. Is much too soon for that. Possibly too soon for sex, definitely too soon to reveal his mark, much, much too soon for his real age. His hand finds its way back into his pocket. Back to the little talisman. Do Shadowhunters know what lengths some warlocks go to to guard that information?

 

He can't tell from Alec's face. He doubts it.

 

“It isn’t,” Alec answers himself. “It’s fine. Forget I asked.”

 

“It’s complicated,” Magnus answers, even though it isn't. Immortality upsets mortals. It makes things awkward. He doesn't want to deal with that tonight. There are so many ways to be vulnerable. 

 

“That's fine,” Alec repeats. 

 

And his earnestness makes Magnus elaborate.“I… I’ll tell you someday. Not today. But that story took place in the mid fourteen hundreds.”

 

Alec nodded. “You’re at least 550 years old?”

 

“I moisturize.” 

 

It's more than he's admitted to a lover in a long time. 

 

But Alec just says “Okay.”

 

Maybe he means it. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe it's the champagne talking.

 

But he smiles.

 

* * *

 

 

Jace is back at the apartment when they portal back into Magnus’s bedroom. Alec can hear him puttering around in the kitchen, which doesn’t necessarily mean he brought another random girl home. 

 

He tunes out the noise when he feels Magnus’s hand at the back of his neck, pulling him down into a kiss. 

 

“What are we going to do?” he asks quietly. 

 

“See where the night takes us,” Magnus replies, his hands already slipping up under Alec’s shirt. 

 

They go slow, but not as slow as before. Alec lets Magnus push him back toward the bed again. They undress again, down to their underwear again. 

 

Not being shocked by Magnus’s ridiculous fancy underwear this time helps. By the Angel, Alec is going to picture that _a lot_ in the near future. 

 

And then they’re naked. Touching everywhere. Kissing everywhere. 

 

“Do you still want—“ Magnus starts.

 

“Yes,” Alec replies, not even waiting for him to finish. “Do you?”

 

“Yes. How?” 

 

“Like this.”

 

“We’re still going to go slow.”

 

“Okay.”

 

It’s nothing like how Alec imagined it would be. It’s more involved, more complicated. More intense. 

 

Less painful. Less overwhelming. 

 

And it feels… he couldn’t have imagined this. Magnus’s fingers, his mouth. The way his body jolts at certain touches. The gasps and moans that Alec can’t hold back and the way Magnus encourages him not to. To just lay back and be taken care of. 

 

By the time Magnus comes back up to kiss him, aligns their bodies, and whispers, “Ready?” the fact that Alec hadn’t been sure earlier in the day seems unreal. 

 

“Yes.”

 


End file.
